Dr. Marry and Me,  Personal Writing

Two Voices of Hope: Second Star to the Right, and Straight on ’til Morning… (8b video)

Little needs to be said about Dr Marry’s video read of his final post because his post said it all so beautifully.

I (cursorily) apologize if anyone is tired of hearing me say this, but sharing this journey with Dr Marry has truly given me such a profoundly different sense of appreciation for him, for where he was and for where he has arrived to after clawing his way back from the brink.

I suppose I almost discounted his side of this story before we put it down in writing because he never talked about it in these deep ways (or maybe I never encouraged him to talk about it in deep ways. If I’ve learned a lot about Dr Marry, you can imagine what discoveries I have made about myself throughout this, too!).

I knew he was “fed up” before he got sober, but he couldn’t really articulate why. And, truthfully, I didn’t really want to hear it anyway because I was drowning in my own “fed up.”

I knew that his rehab group and his AA meetings were important to him, but he does not share details with me, which is appropriate. One of the idioms of AA is that what is shared there stays there. It’s no lie when I said in “2b. Our beginning from my side” that I’d never heard Dr Marry say, “I’m Mazz Marry, and I’m an alcoholic.” That hit me like a bullet when I first read it, and I did burst into tears. Suddenly, this very abstract thing that had been crushing us both with its intangible shape and weight had a name, and we could stare straight into its dark, insidious eyes and begin to overpower it, individually and together.

And while Dr Marry had to do the physical and mental work of owning this disease and his role with it, I, too, had to recognize the times I had been, willingly or unwillingly, a dance partner in this complicated waltz we had constructed. And recognizing and naming my contribution to all of it was among the most freeing things I have ever done.

The only other thing to come close is this journey we have embarked upon with the world. Owning this, sharing this and hearing other people reveal their journeys with alcoholism, as addicts, parents, children, spouses, friends, has been humbling and hard and an absolute privilege that neither Dr Marry nor I take lightly. We both truly believe that this, sharing our story, is now part of our life’s work. And we are honored to pick it up and carry it forward because we believe so strongly that good can and will come of it for others just like it did for us.

Next: Second Star to the Right, and Straight on ’til Morning 8c (podcast)

I titled this featured image “Adoring wifey” because this is exactly how I feel about this man. And I chose the thumbnail of us laughing for the video because that is truly who we have become: joyful. We don’t take for granted the joy we share every day because we know what it took to find it. Our hope is that if you are in the darkness that we were in, you will find your way back to joy, too. There is hope…and there is definitely help. Seek it out. Trust us, what you will discover on the other side is more than worth the journey.

Dayna Del Val is on a mission to help others (re)discover the spark they were born with through her blog and newsletter, her professional talks and the (re)Discover Your Spark retreats she leads. Dayna works with people to help them not just identify and articulate their dreams but to develop a framework to get going on the pursuit of those dreams—today, in the next few months and for the years ahead. She's at the intersection of remarkable and so, so ordinary, but she knows that pretty much everyone else is, too. She's excited to be sharing this extraordinary journey with you.

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